That, in a nutshell, tells the story of America’s corn-based ethanol boondoggle over the past three decades. (For the rollicking tale of how the whole thing got started in the first place, go here). Over the same time span, we’ve allowed our national rail-transport system to wither into self-parody; watched as cities defunded or neglected mass transit; failed to make necessary investments in clean energy sources like wind and solar while also declining to force fossil energy producers to pay for the massive damage they cause; and, most recently, elected a Democratic president who seems hell-bent on putting Sarah Palin’s “drill, baby, drill” energy vision into place. And through it all, our government’s blind, deep-pocketed loyalty to corn-based car fuel has endured.

But that may be changing … at least partially. Last week, the Senate voted 73-27 to remove one of the industry’s oldest and most-cherished pillars: the tax break gasoline blenders get for every gallon of the corn-based fuel they mix.

There’s no doubt that the tax break is a massive waste of resources that must end. This year alone, the ethanol tax credit will cost the Treasury $6 billion—equal to about 65 percent of the annual federal outlay for public school lunches. That means instead of propping up a crappy fuel source, we could boost our annual investment in child nutrition by two-thirds without increasing the deficit by a penny.

Another way to look at it is this: Ethanol sucks in about 75 percent of the total tax breaks granted to alternative energy, leaving wind and solar to fight for scraps. By pulling the plug at long last on the ethanol tax break, we could make significant investments in energy sources that actually reduce carbon emissions (unlike ethanol, which doesn‘t).

But here’s the kicker: Even if the Senate’s move makes it through the House and the White House—both hotbeds of ethanol boosterism—it will do nothing to stem the flow of industrially produced corn from Midwestern farms to distillers to gas tanks. That’s because the tax break became utterly redundant when President Bush signed the 2007 Energy Act, which stipulated that gasoline makers inject a large and ever-growing amount of ethanol into the fuel mix. Take the tax break away, and the ethanol juggernaut will lurch on, sucking in billions of bushels of resource-intensive corn and spewing out billions of gallons of low-quality car fuel.

Moreover, savings from ending the ethanol tax break will not go to crucial programs like school lunches or clean energy. Instead, they’ll almost certainly vanish into the maw of Washington’s deficit hysteria.

In short, the Senate’s move to revoke ethanol’s multi-billion dollar annual grab from the national trough is both long overdue and futile. Support for ethanol is too ingrained—so to speak—in our political culture to be ended simply by taking away a redundant tax subsidy. To put corn ethanol in its rightful place—the compost pile of history—would require the Democrats to do something they have utterly failed to do, under Obama or before: spell out a coherent national energy/transportation policy that transitions us from fossil fuels to true renewables. And that will happen not with draconian budget cuts, but rather by spending money to build out a proper renewable-energy/green-transportation infrastructure.

Looking for news you can trust?

Subscribe to our free newsletters.

DOES IT FEEL LIKE POLITICS IS AT A BREAKING POINT?

It sure feels that way to me, and here at Mother Jones, we’ve been thinking a lot about what journalism needs to do differently, and how we can have the biggest impact.

We kept coming back to one word: corruption. Democracy and the rule of law being undermined by those with wealth and power for their own gain. So we're launching an ambitious Mother Jones Corruption Project to do deep, time-intensive reporting on systemic corruption, and asking the MoJo community to help crowdfund it.

We aim to hire, build a team, and give them the time and space needed to understand how we got here and how we might get out. We want to dig into the forces and decisions that have allowed massive conflicts of interest, influence peddling, and win-at-all-costs politics to flourish.

It's unlike anything we've done, and we have seed funding to get started, but we're looking to raise $500,000 from readers by July when we'll be making key budgeting decisions—and the more resources we have by then, the deeper we can dig. If our plan sounds good to you, please help kickstart it with a tax-deductible donation today.

Thanks for reading—whether or not you can pitch in today, or ever, I'm glad you're with us.

We Noticed You Have An Ad Blocker On.

ONE QUICK THING:
Did you see that Mother Jones is launching a new Corruption Project? Check it out, and if our plan makes sense to you, we hope you'll help us raise $500,000 and go all in.

ONE QUICK THING:
Did you see that Mother Jones is launching a new Corruption Project? Check it out, and if our plan makes sense to you, we hope you'll help us raise $500,000 and go all in.

THE MOTHER JONES CORRUPTION PROJECT
We're crowdfunding to hire and build a new beat focused on systemic corruption—investigating how democracy and the rule of law are being undermined by those with wealth and power. Read why we believe this is what the moment demands, and please help fund it with a tax-deductible donation today.

THE MOTHER JONES CORRUPTION PROJECT
We're crowdfunding to hire and build a new beat focused on systemic corruption—investigating how democracy is being undermined by those with wealth and power. Read more, and please help fund it with a tax-deductible donation today.